At Amazon's annual company meeting in Seattle, one longtime shareholder asked CEO Jeff Bezos about his policy of talking publically about Amazon's plans.

Bezos said that the company keeps its details under wraps because it doesn't want to accidentally give its competitors — like Apple, Samsung, and IBM — any valuable details, according to GeekWire reporter Todd Bishop, who reported his full answer.

Here's Bezos' full answer:

"Our primary approach is, we talk when we have something to say. I never think of us as secretive, I think of us as mostly quiet.

We operate in a really competitive environment. Retail in general, e-commerce for sure, technology and our devices. We take great care to try and keep our product roadmaps quiet. I would love to know what Apple’s product roadmap is. That would be very helpful to me. They work hard to keep their product roadmaps quiet.

When you’re competing against terrific companies — like Apple and Samsung, and in AWS’s case, terrific companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard, the list goes on — you really need to be cognizant of how your competitors are going to glean useful tidbits from seemingly harmless disclosures.”

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his
personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.